From Vivendi to Webvan, the shortcomings of a bad strategy are usually painfully obvious -- at least in retrospect. But good strategies fail too, and when that happens, it's often harder to pinpoint the reasons. Yet despite the obvious importance of good planning and execution, relatively few management thinkers have focused on what kinds of processes and leadership are best for turning a strategy into results.

Despite some of the more troubling news here in London, there are still some very nice perks to living here - one of which is living 2 hours from the coast.

I got back Thursday evening from my first 3-day golf adventure in Deal & Sandwich (near Dover). Played 36 at Royal St. Georges on Tuesday, 36 at Royal Cinq Ports on Wednesday and 27 at Princes on Tursday.

It was incredible.

The weather was perfect and the wind varied between a gentle 10mph and game-breaking 25mph, with gusts well over that at times. I hit a 9-iron 210 yards and hit a 5-iron 130. Needless to say, I spent most of my time on the range practicing hitting a knock-down/bump-and-run 7-iron. Without it, you're dead.

The front nine at Royal St. Georges (2003 Open) is the most majestic and spectacular I have ever played/seen. Words do it no justice. The 4th, 5th and 6th are like no other I have ever seen. In addition, walking through the clubhouse is like taking a golf history lesson. The trophy cases are amazing.

Royal Cinq Ports (1920 Open) is a textbook links course set on beautiful oceanfront property with a clubhouse overlooking the course and ocean. They're lengthening it to 7350 yards in the hopes of getting the Open back there again. I played from the middle tees, and it was more than enough for me. A true test.

It's a co-production with Adobe too and will be offered on Nokia handsets as well. But forget about it being easy to develop on. It's hardcore J2ME platform required to get anything decent out of it.

It uses the Java rendering classes and if you write it properly runs Flash lite content at better performance than native embedded Flash lite players (i.e. on the Nokia N-Series S60 v3). And native Java 3D is ridiculously quick and by far the best 3D rendering on mobile platforms. Don't forget the Capuchin classes are also ROM-embedded which means they are effectively native.

Forget Android, it won't come anywhere close in terms of penetration . It'll stay a toy for developers. The first phone comes out on T-mobile - let's see how that works (or not).

I'm sure that this will be the daddy of what AM will be working on with SE Global for at least 6 months before it launches in 2008, and they'll probably build demos for Adobe Max and Orange.

Just quote 242LOPCSO when you register at Betfair and you'll get a £20 free bet and an additional reward at the end of three months based on the amount you bet. This is a great way to check out the system and give it a free try.

No more need to fret about all that wasted time waiting in line for the buffet at your favorite casino. Or those tedious talks in a convention room just a few yards from the casino floor. Help is on the way to make it possible to gamble any time - in fact - all the time."

Online poker is on a winning streak. According to research firm River City Group, Internet poker alone is a $2 billion-a-year industry with a million players monthly. ComScore Media Metrix -- which measures all U.S. Internet users at home, work and college locations -- reports more than 29.1 million unique visitors to online gambling sites in April, out of a total audience of 165 million.

And, according to a recent survey from The University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, card playing for money has increased among males between the ages of 14 and 22. In 2004, 11.4% of in-school male youth reported betting on cards at least once a week, up from 6.2% in 2003; furthermore, 11.4% of these weekly card players are likely to gamble on the Internet. In addition, 43.2% of players who bet money weekly on cards were under 18, according to the Annenberg survey.